All the speculation can be a bit humorous, it is peppered with a few half truths. For those of you worried about all the coding being moved to the Ukraine, check the job board for Daly City software engineer positions. I encourage you talented people to apply.

As you might know, one year ago we decided to combine all the Avid® companies—including Digidesign®, M-Audio®, and Sibelius®—into a new, unified Avid. Since then, we've taken steps toward transitioning Digidesign to the Avid name. We understand that you might have questions about the future of Digidesign and the product lines you've invested in. With that in mind, we'd like to share some information, answer some questions, and explain how these changes will affect you.

New website launching April 12th

Many of you told us that we needed to improve the navigation, organization, and the overall user experience of digidesign.com. In order to make these improvements, a major overhaul was necessary. On April 12th, we're going to launch a brand new avid.com website that will include all of the digidesign.com pages—plus a number of enhancements to make navigation faster and easier. At first, the website will be US-only, but over the next few months, we'll work on moving the international Digidesign websites as well. To help you get acclimated, we'll be posting an interim page at digidesign.com offering links straight to the pages that are most important to you.

Why move the website to Avid.com?

Not surprisingly, many of you own products from multiple Avid companies—including Digidesign, M-Audio, and Sibelius—so we thought it would be more convenient to offer one centralized, unified website for all Avid products. We're working toward providing you benefits like a simplified product registration process, single login ID, and a one-stop source for all product information, support, downloads, and news.

What will the new site be like?

The people behind the look and feel of Digidesign and M-Audio are now creating a new look and feel for all Avid—so don't expect the new site to look like we sell IT products! It will feature completely new navigation and organization, making it easier and faster to find what you want. Overall, it's a big improvement over the current Digidesign website. Our web team incorporated feedback from customers into the new site—we think you're really going to like it.

Is the Digidesign name going away?

Yes, we are in the process of retiring the Digidesign name—but the products will live on. After talking with many of you, we discovered that most people identify more with the product names—such as Pro Tools®, VENUE, ICON—instead of the company name (actually, there are some people who thought the name of the company was Pro Tools, so go figure...).

What is happening to the Digidesign team?

Rest assured, the same core Digidesign team of audio fanatics is still here, with offices in Daly City, CA. We just have a different logo on our letterhead. And since the transition, we've been playing key roles in creating the new Avid. Over the coming months, you'll start to see our influence on packaging, videos, customer communications (like this one), and the overall look and feel of Avid.

Why is the Digidesign name being retired?

In today's rapidly changing business environment, it no longer makes sense to maintain many separate brands. It's also impractical to have multiple marketing teams, websites, newsletters, and separate methods for communicating with customers. Our new brand strategy is to combine everything under the Avid name. This will help us streamline operations and become a healthier company—which frees up more resources for product development. We figured that you'd rather see us put more money towards designing innovative new gear than maintaining five separate brands.

What does this mean for the Digidesign product lines?

You've seen a taste of what can be accomplished when we work together—products like Pro Tools M-Powered™, Video Satellite between Media Composer® and Pro Tools, the DSM monitors, and Sibelius integration into Pro Tools. Moving forward, audio and video are going to be equally important for Avid. We're totally committed to Pro Tools, VENUE, ICON, and all the other product lines that used to be branded under Digidesign. Combining forces with the other Avid companies means more resources for our R&D department to work with, enabling us to release more great products than ever. We're also committed to expanding our product lines further—in fact, we have some incredible new audio products in store for 2010 and beyond...

What about the M-Audio brand name?

We've begun the process of transitioning the M-Audio name to a product brand instead of a company name. You'll continue seeing product names like the M-Audio Oxygen 25, and the M-Audio BX5a Deluxe.

What does this mean for the M-Audio and Sibelius websites?

Eventually, the M-Audio and Sibelius websites will be moved to the new Avid.com as well. But for now, those sites will continue to operate independently just as usual.

We truly appreciate your loyalty and continued support, and hope you take some time to explore the new website on April 12th. If you have any questions or comments, please join the conversation here.

To be honest i think digidesign (Avid) is one of the most greedy and cocky corporations out there, so what im trying to say is that my idea of digi is that they dont care if reality bites them in the ass, they will still be selling HD and LE as it is with minor improvements and they are probably laughing right now about the PT NE idea...

Ive met a lot of digidesign's employees and the true devoted ones think that digi is the best company on earth and that the things they do are crippled for a reason other than just making money, one employee once told me back in the 6.0 days "we limit le to 32 voices because its meant for the homerecordists, and home recordists dont need more than that", digi is telling their employees that idea and they are buying it, they dont want to think about the money making machine digi is, and we should also consider, that digi's employees attitude are only reflecting the entire digi corporation philosophy. So do i think that digi(avid?) will come to their senses and bring in something like you guys mentioned ? The answer is No in the near future...

However switching to Logic is not the way to go at least not for now, in the studio, the producer i work for, works and worships logic, and i do understand it in a production sense. However the times i was asked to mix in logic, i did it, and let me tell you this: the routing is a pain in the ass compared to PT, the automation is a total piece of crap and the editing and zoom features are just time consuming. Do i like it? sure it has a lot of cool things but i wouldnt switch to logic, not yet, not from a mixing perspective at least. Digi knows this and knows that their main "friend" is the mixer, so i would say that until logic really knocks the hell out of PT or at least level in with it in editing and mixing enviroments, digi wont consider doing a crazy move...

ya, sorry i'm just bitter. i've been laid off and had sub contractors come in to do my job. feel for those guys at digi and lash out at companies that do that. its like the opposite of investing in human capital. i heard apple laid off 40 final cut employees? wtf? maybe those guys can get together make a new daw that's the best ever ?

avid could combine pt m-powered and le platforms, make them work with m-audio gear. drop a sick 004 they'll have a really strong "consumer" version to market. i'm willing to bet m-audio sales keep the company rolling! new hd hardware, 64 bit os compatible, full support for all their current customers, trade-in programs, etc would be great too.

Love it or hate it I think it's important to acknowledge that what shaped PT into what it is now is a bit of a "California" aesthetic - and that the fact that they had a lot of developers who were musicians and audio engineers as well as being coders made the end product becoming a lot more user friendly than it might have been otherwise. Whether this changes or not in the future has yet to be seen.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

I agree,Steve
But it's(or have been till soon) also a "California" aesthetic to have a 4K(British) and A800(Swiss)...and lots of great Californian classics are made on those...
A true talent finds his way through whatever technology...

And back to the outsourcing topic...
Outsourcing is an "invention" of the American economy.
I also love to have items labeled "Made in USA"...but unfortunately see
that label more and more rarely...
Once the American companies were in need of talented scientists,engineers,etc....so they were importing ones...
Those did their jobs on developing technology so well,that the companies no more need to import people...now they're outsourcing tasks.
And they have the same job done,paying times and times less to their employees.
And who of them cares about the local human potential? None!
It's all done "For few(billion) dollars more"...

Maybe China & their censorship forces people to actually do something instead of just criticizing everyone else in public forums.
The tides are shifting......... they work hard and talk less.
If Americans are not careful, development & innovation will not be our biggest export in the near future....... competition in the world economy is now heating up.

The physical offices may still be there, because they are leased until September 2014, but it is only a skeleton crew there. The "core" team has long since left the building.

Digi recently closed one whole floor, of Pro Tools development, at the Daly City offices. If you've driven by that building (the one with the Jamba Juice, Starbucks, Subway, Fuddruckers etc), it is not small. Closing one whole floor is a huge headcount reduction...320 to be exact. That is 320 Pro Tools engineers let go after years of loyalty and dedication.

Their marketing budget now eclipses the product development budget. The ICON is not selling in the pro audio segment, only in the post-production segment.

Look for AVID to abandon the pro audio segment and divert all resources into vigorously pursuing the broadcast/post-production segments to remain viable (not unlike Euphonix once did).

Well, maybe your right, but here in europe I see more and more icon in the music industry as well. And in live sound, their consoles are everywhere, and post production is completely ruled by them.
Of course I'm not there to know the exact truth, but the guys I know at digi/avid, don't tell things like you. To be honest, I almost hear exactly the opposite, like: very good place to work, many talented guys are there, etc.

idk if anyone cares but, digi has been setting up focus groups or "think tanks" lately around the world. Actually, rumor has it they have one here in cali (irwindale to be exact) for the next 2 months and will be going elsewhere(somewhere in south america-can't remember right now-the aliens must have wiped my memory again) for 2 mo's at a time.

To be honest, I almost hear exactly the opposite, like: very good place to work, many talented guys are there, etc.

At lot of the 'insiders' quoted seem to be Ex Digi employees. When someone is Let Go, he is bound to have a rather negative view of the company he was let go from...

"morale is low" he will say - certainly HIS morale is low. It would be a very rare individual who could look at his own firing and think, 'well, they do have to cut somewhere and cutting my job makes sense in the Big Picture'

when someone is Kept On, his outlook on the 'future of the company' is probably going to be a lot brighter, and the trimming of dead wood is going to look like a sign of turnaround, not a sign of dysfunction.

I tried to research some info for the "market share" thread. Market share being defined in dollars spent, not "copies out there". I looked at Hoover's and other sources and found Digi running annual sales of about $200 million; the closest competitor was Steinberg running at about $17 million. That's better than 10:1

Either Digi is selling a LOT of m-boxes, or selling high-end integrated hardware/software systems is a much better business model than just making software and native solutions. I lean towards this view, and think that those urging Avid to "unprotect" HD are being naive.

The big questions are companies like Apple. I consider myself a decent Googler, but I was unable to find any breakdowns that separate out Logic sales from the computer and iPod business.

800 posts of pure speculation, I bet only a handful of the top executives really know where the money is. And even their knowledge may be limited to their own corporation. Who knows what information and disinformation is put out there.

I looked at Hoover's and other sources and found Digi running annual sales of about $200 million

Digidesign's FY2009 revenues were exactly $107M.

Quote:

Originally Posted by narcoman

funny how their balance sheet is black though!! And quite nicely black for an audio company.

There's no way you can know this. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avid Technology, Digidesign's cost of goods sold (COGS), and thus net income (NI), is proprietary and only reported as an aggregate of Avid Technology financials.

There's no way you can know this. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avid Technology, Digidesign's cost of goods sold (COGS), and thus net income (NI), is proprietary and only reported as an aggregate of Avid Technology financials.

FWIW, I have yet to talk to anybody who prefers Final Cut to Avid or who would sell their Media Composer or Symphony system and replace it with Final Cut. Final Cut IS cheap, perfectly workable and you can use it on a laptop. So is Sony Vegas and I've heard of a number of people going that route.

Apple's cutting the price of Logic in half really speaks volumes about its future. DAWs are ungodly expensive applications to support. That's why virtually all of them but Pro Tools has been acquired by a larger corporation within the past few years.

It hasn't been apparent yet? would you happen to be on firefox by any chance? maybe OSX? surely a company like Apple has never ever dipped into the Open Source swimming pool on a hot day....

security
creative freedoms to explore ideals not feasible in a cut throat market
creative opportunity to develop new protocol outside proprietary circles
R&D on a massive scale
Real-world feedback and solutions
Support of older/legacy technologies
New means of utilizing older technologies
Honestly the downside list is a much much shorter one....

Programmers, developers, System Admins.... love Open Source
Proprietary Billionaires put it down any chance they get...

coincedence?

id be curious to know if Gearslutz itself isnt run on an Server running some form of Open Source coding....vBulletin runs on any MySQL supported OS.

on a sidenote... Larry Ellison's Oracle does not work with MySQL (not that it should)...but maybe Mr Ellison is opposed to open forums as well ?

Peter,

No pokes to you.... i just think Larry Ellison is a Smug Close-Minded Individual. Sitting in his chair with a suit costing more than your vehicle...running his legal Ponzi racket. lol

Avids (digidesigns) next move has and always will be... to figure out a better way to slither their fingers into your pockets and extract the most amount of money from your wallet legally possible...they are a business no?

on a bright side...

with competition so high... maybe they might turn out a few audible worthy mid-level products now with the amalgamation...

Why is it not ok for a company to make profit if they deliver a product that people like & use?

I've seen many of the freeware & inexpensive audio programs and they don't measure up.
If open source such a great thing, why is there not tons of great audio programs available? They should be able to make a better program than PT......They have the benefit of knowing what people are bitching about that PT does not have...... Seems easy.
Reaper is cool...... but ain't free anymore.
I guess talented people like to eat and live in houses.

I know the response...... Pro Audio is a small market, i've heard that one before......just after people post companies earnings in the hundreds of millions.

Let me state this fact..... Music is not a trend or fad, it has been part of the human culture forever...... People will always want to hear music, so people will always need to perform & record it, making the music industry a forever vital business. (and lots of people still make great money doing it and always will)Humans have not changed, they way they get information & entertainment delivered to them has, thats it.......... People who claim Doomsday is near for the music industry make me laugh.

Why is it not ok for a company to make profit if they deliver a product that people like & use?

I've seen many of the freeware & inexpensive audio programs and they don't measure up.
If open source such a great thing, why is there not tons of great audio programs available? They should be able to make a better program than PT......They have the benefit of knowing what people are bitching about that PT does not have...... Seems easy.
Reaper is cool...... but ain't free anymore.
I guess talented people like to eat and live in houses.

I know the response...... Pro Audio is a small market, i've heard that one before......just after people post companies earnings in the hundreds of millions.

Let me state this fact..... Music is not a trend or fad, it has been part of the human culture forever...... People will always want to hear music, so people will always need to perform & record it, making the music industry a forever vital business. (and lots of people still make great money doing it and always will)Humans have not changed, they way they get information & entertainment delivered to them has, thats it.......... People who claim Doomsday is near for the music industry make me laugh.

Peter,

im not one of those people who feel everything should be free and available because i want everything the way i want it , i want it now, and i want it at absolutely no cost at all to me. Neither is the Open Source community. Open Source code finds its way into Proprietary code dontcha know? The ideas developed are just not possible in a commercial environment of...ok we've put up the development funds...now wheres our return !! sometimes it takes awhile for things to catch on.

Open Source audio stuff...

Harrison Mixbus is based on Ardour which is an Open Source project
Pulse Audio
Jack
XT2
Renoise
sooo many more

They are NOT free.... donations are requested. There is a difference between software available to be used uninhibited....and actually given away freely. Open Source does not always = FREE. But it can be which is refreshing in todays world of pay up..need an update to what i sold you unfinished? pay up. No?

if Audio becomes an after thought to Conglomerates.... where do you think the audio technology will end up? and probably flourish.... Open Source.

Music is NOT a trend, i will whole-heartedly agree with you....it is cultures and civilizations means of expression. I LOVE music... as do soo many of us. But in a business context.... there are easier avenues to make money.

I use Open Source software as much as Proprietary software.... and guess what? i pay both parties for the privilege.

Last edited by tuRnitUpsuM; 4th April 2010 at 05:07 AM..
Reason: spelling,grammar

One thing to remember is that we are very close to a real turning point in hardware. Two major changes are just a few months off. One is USB-3. The other is a new generation of Ethernet.

Both of these are prime candidates for a next-generation audio interface and DSP package that will probably equal or exceed the capabilities of anything you can put in a computer slot. Nobody's going to develop new hardware for today's computers so the next generation of DAWs can only be expected to appear after USB3 and the new Ethernet have hit the mainstream.